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Success in self-publishing – it’s more complex than you think

Success in self-publishing – it’s more complex than you think

Success in self-publishing – it’s more complex than you think. There are many reasons to write a book, and there are just as many ways to gauge how successful your book is.

Defining success by how many books are sold is a crude measure. ‘Success’ is really whatever the author wants to achieve, and many don’t care about publishing a bestseller or getting rich.

Some authors write and publish books and drive business to their professional practice, using the book as a business card of sorts. One of our authors sold just 392 copies of her book and made over $2,000 in profit directly from those sales. But from those sales she gained three new clients in just the first year of publishing her book. ­Those new clients together spent almost $90,000 annually on services provided by her company.

Even still, monetary success doesn’t have to be the only form – recognition from peers is just as valid a way to measure the success of your book. Another author we’ve worked with wrote a family history in the weeks following a near-death medical episode. ­The book was launched at a family reunion and received a standing ovation.

Want to read more? This excerpt is rewritten from our Big Book of Little Publishing Tips. Enquire with Green Hill Publishing today and get your copy.

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Is the medium always the message?

Is the medium always the message?

Pile of books with differing quality print

Photo by Mahendra Kumar on Unsplash

Is the medium always the message? Publishing a book is not just about graphic design. A book is so much more than the visuals – it is also about touch.

Print remains the most universal and popular format for publishing a book. Despite the rise of audiobooks and ebooks there are more books printed each year in the history of planet Earth. And that’s where paper comes in.

Paper is a major variable in determining the print price of any author’s book. Depending on the paper type, it can add as much as 100% to the print price (regardless of whether it’s full-colour printing or just black). As dealt with in a previous book publishing blog, choice of production quality (including the paper) can destroy the economic viability of any project.

If you are doing a business book or a work of fiction, we always recommend using a budget paper stock so there is enough profit margin, i.e. retail price minus cost of production.

If it is an art book or poetry, then you can consider high quality paper. As Marshal McLuhn famously said “the medium is the message? In book publishing this might mean that a book is considered in its totality – the words, illustrations, the binding, and the paper.

In my mind, the jury is still out on McLuhan. Is what he said true in every situation? My emerging view is for fiction and many non-fiction genres (where the content and written word has primacy) the medium is not the message. Print cheap and profit.

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Interested in publishing your book but unsure where to start or what is even involved? Tell us about your project and we will post you a copy of our:

 

The Little Book of
Big Publishing Tips.

 

In just a quick 8,000 words, this little book will equip you with the knowledge you need to successfully publish your book.

The Little Book of Big Publishing tips goes into the essentials of self-publishing a book, outlining the business and financial side of publishing, legal issues, design, editing, sales and marketing. There's even a section on how to identify a vanity-publishing scam.

submit your project details

Self-publishing is as old as the printing press

Self-publishing is as old as the printing press

This year one of our authors rang concerned that announcement of the release her new book in social media was criticised by quite a few people.

They said self-publishing was ‘selling out’, And ‘my literary agent and I are still in negotiations with Picador’. The sanctimony increased with ‘my editor has pleaded with me to pitch the book to her agent friend in New York, she said “its got to be one of the best books of the last decade” ‘.

The thing is this: not one of these critics had ever been published in any form, all attended ‘expert’ writing groups, all were well advanced into their seventies, having written on average 5 manuscripts over the last 10 years.

I have little doubt unpublished they will remain.

I’ve been in publishing for almost 30 years and have managed the production of over 1,000 titles. All of these were self-published. All of these were brought to market by authors with a burning drive to reach the eyes of readers.

Guttenberg – a political exile – built the first modern printing press to self-publish The Bible and political pamphlets. Similarly a few years later Claxton published works for the monarchy – this was in-house self-publishing. Schoffer self-published his The Book of Psalms. 

In these cases whoever owned the printing press was also the author and publisher.

No hierarchical publishing industry structure there.

Every writer wants their creative work to be read. High levels of literacy, the freedom (in many countries) to voice ideas – even controversial ideas, technology e.g. print on demand and online distribution systems has democratized publishing. And that’s got to be a good thing.

No more big publishing companies, whose only goal seems to be returning value to shareholders – totally controlling the interests of content creators.

 

We’ve still got a long way to go. But I say an emphatic ‘viva self-publishing’!

Featured Blog Posts

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

Interested in publishing your book but unsure where to start or what is even involved? Tell us about your project and we will post you a copy of our:

 

The Little Book of
Big Publishing Tips.

 

In just a quick 8,000 words, this little book will equip you with the knowledge you need to successfully publish your book.

The Little Book of Big Publishing tips goes into the essentials of self-publishing a book, outlining the business and financial side of publishing, legal issues, design, editing, sales and marketing. There's even a section on how to identify a vanity-publishing scam.

submit your project details